The Prince of Tides

by Pat Conroy

I politely declined, as I did when I was solicited by seven other fraternities that same year. Never has the word no held such ethereal beauty for me.

Nothing so affects a small town as the loss of its rarest and finest man. Nothing so affects a southern family as the death of the man who lent it balance and fragility in a world askew with corrupt values. His faith had always been a form of splendid madness and his love affair with the world was a hymn of eloquent praise to the lamb who made him. There

Not only did I feel passion again, I felt the return of hope and a clearance of all storm warnings in the danger zones of memory. I had spent the summer

“Listen to me, Savannah. There’s no word in the language I revere more than teacher. None. My heart sings when a kid refers to me as his teacher and it always has. I’ve honored myself and the entire family of man by becoming one.”